You cannot pick and choose numbers based on a single manufacturer with Android, you just can't. That's not how it works.

Meh, I picked Samsung, the big boy ... all the other manufacturers are going to be variations on a theme. In the end, they're still a half-truth.

Don't get me wrong, Samsung going from 2.3M to 8.8M in a year is fantastic ... however, you can't ignore the fact that if you start from a relatively small number (2.3M vs 11.8M), it's FAR-FAR-FAR easier to quadruple your numbers.

Dollars to donuts ... would you rather have a 65% bump on 11.8M, or a 282% bump on 2.3M? I'll happily take the former.

In the end, the article writer is trying to paint a picture by "picking and choosing" certain numbers ... which you say is wrong. I agree, to be fair you need consider all of the numbers, but then you wouldn't get the picture they're trying to sell here.

Samsung tablets are certainly growing, but that doesn't mean the Apple iPad is going into the crapper. Of course, that doesn't generate as many clicks now does it?

However, I will point out to you that Samsung's S3 CRUSHED the iPhone last year (by itself), and I bet the S4/HTC One will do it again this summer.

We were talking about tablets, not phones ... but if it makes you feel better, we can discuss those too.

"CRUSHED" is a little vague (and pointed), so I'd prefer to see actual numbers ... just so we know they're not being generated in a slanted way, you understand.

Either way I'd still say Samsung has done a good job with the S3, whereas the iPhone 5 just wasn't a "revolutionary" phone ... plus there's that new charging cable that I'm staying away from for now.

Currently, I have an iPhone 4S and my wife has the Galaxy S3, so I have experienced them both. Both are excellent phones, each has pluses and minuses, and neither is perfect. Personally, I'd like to see Apple do substantially better things with their camera (preferably out-of-the-box!) I'd also like to see Samsung (or Android?) clean up the weird issues with their volume control, and make their web browser run a LOT smoother. Not sure who has the better battery life (probably comparable?), but she has more problems with her charger, and I have none with mine. FWIW...

teknishn:Commenters here seem to have missed the memo that the Nexus 7 and Kindle tablets are sell through. They have zero profit in them basically. Sounds like an amazing business strategy. Apple isn't pricing themselves out of anything. They're just the only ones that make any money. Furthermore, last time I checked all the best Android phones cost the same as iPhones.

There's a reason that the Nexus 7 and Kindle tablets have zero profits behind them. Google and Amazon have a completely different business focus than Apple. Apple is focused on hardware, so it makes a margin on the hardware (iTunes made up only 6% of Apple's Q3 earnings).

Google is not a hardware company. In fact, most of their hardware that is developed in-house have flopped (Nexus Q, for instance). Google is an advertising company, so they stand to make money through serving you advertising, which is easier if they can get their devices out as cheaply as possible.

Amazon is a content company. Amazon makes hardware, but their hardware are created purely so that the buyer can buy content from Amazon, whether it is through Prime, Instant Video, the MP3 store or their books. Amazon does not care about hardware margins and it is to their benefit to sell their devices as cheaply as possible as well.

All three are really great hardware platforms, hardly 'cheap knock-offs". Apple could justify it's hardware margins when content on Android was limited. Now that content on android is at least as good as iOS, there is very little reason for anyone new to the tablet market to choose Apple over an Android counterpart.

You're absolutely right, but I don't think that's what he's referring to as "knock-offs". There are some really, really bad tablets out there in the $100 range or less running obsolete versions of Android and are extremely underpowered. I think I've even seen one without a capacitive screen. Now, depending on your intentions, those things may actually, but if you get frisky and start installing apps on them, you're gonna have a bad time.

When the market gets flooded with countless cheap knockoff $70 tablets, yeah, this was gonna happen. I don't care if it is tablets, cell phones, cars or clothes. Someone makes a product, sells it as a "super-shiny-awesome-4G-with-newest-Android-2.5", they are going to sell the cheap knock-offs to people who don't know any better, hence the "other" category being as high as it is.